Quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) use electronic intersubband transitions for lasing action in semiconductor superlattices. For light to be either strongly emitted or absorbed by intersubband transitions, the electric field of the light is typically perpendicular to the epitaxial layers and transverse magnetic (TM) polarized light is predominantly absorbed or emitted by intersubband transitions in quantum wells.
Plasmon-waveguide structures have been introduced for transverse-mode confinement in QCLs because of the impracticality of growing cladding layers sufficiently thick to contain the long evanescent tail of the transverse mode present at the longer emission wavelengths of intersubband semiconductor lasers such as QCLs. Plasmon-waveguide structures provide optical confinement by significantly lowering the refractive index of the cladding layers by use of high doping to increase the refractive index contrast. When the doping level is sufficiently high, the plasma frequency of the semiconductor approaches the QCL emission frequency so that the optical character of the semiconductor becomes more metal-like with a complex refractive index, n+ik, a small real component, n, and a large imaginary component, k. Adjusting the doping and thickness of the plasmon-waveguide structures allows the modal loss and the overlap with the quantum cascade to be optimized.
The requirements for doping in the visible and near-infrared wavelengths for plasmon confinement are typically too high to be practicable. However, at the longer, mid and far infrared (IR) wavelengths typically associated with QCLs, doping levels on the order of about 1018/cm3 are sufficient to reduce the refractive index of the cladding layers at the operational wavelength of the QCL to provide transverse-mode confinement. This approach has been explored in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/076599 entitled “Quantum Cascade Laser with Grating Formed by a Periodic Variation in Doping” incorporated herein by reference.